Summer Beach Reads. Natalie Anderson

It looks so much bigger from here.’

      Uh-oh. ‘Never?’

      She shook her head. ‘Only river ferries.’

      ‘Well, that’s exciting then.’ God loved an optimist. Yet the hint of vulnerability certainly wasn’t unappealing.

      She chewed her lip and raised her eyes up the side of the enormous hull. ‘I hope so.’

      ‘Once you’re up there it won’t look so big. I promise.’

      But he couldn’t promise what a novice would make of the pitch and roll of the Tasman Sea. Her clever solution wasn’t going to look too great when she was face down over a toilet bowl for four days. Or the bow of the ship.

      He took her hand and drew her upwards. Took a step. Then another. She followed him up the long skinny gangplank. They were met at the top by a smiling man who greeted them in heavily accented English.

      ‘Welcome to ship!’

      He glanced around at the heavy fittings, the utilitarian paint job. Yup, definitely a working vessel. But it did at least look solid. And clean. And much less daunting from on deck for his suddenly nervous novice.

      Their crew member told them in broken English that Immigration would come through before the ship was cleared for departure and to have their passports ready, and to stay in their cabin until they’d been cleared.

      Amongst so many mispronunciations, that little one slipped him right by.

      At least until the man flung a small door wide and cheerfully announced, ‘Room!’

      The cabin was tiny but it had two neat beds in it. Skinny single beds. Shirley looked at the seaman sideways. ‘Whose room?’

      ‘Yes. Your room.’

      ‘But which? Mine or his?’

      The lines on his weathered face multiplied. Shirley grew dangerously still and the man started babbling in his own tongue. It was Greek. Greatly evolved from the ancient Greek Hayden had studied during his classical units, but close enough.

      He stepped in and fumbled his way to offering to help in classical Greek. The man instantly refocused on the closest approximation to his own language in the room.

      ‘How many cabins did you book?’ he said quickly to Shirley.

      ‘Two. Of course, two.’ Furious colour crept ever higher.

      He did his best to communicate the dilemma. The crewman nodded and shot back in rapid-fire Greek.

      ‘I think he’s agreeing with you.’ The man held up two fingers. ‘Two.’

      ‘Damn right he is …’ Shirley started to fan her hot face with her passport.

      The crewman picked up Hayden’s suitcase and placed it on the foot of the bed and then he picked up Shirley’s and walked out of the room with it, crossed the tiny hallway and opened a door there to a room the twin of the first. He dumped her suitcase on the end of a bed in there. And then turned to check her understanding. Baffled but optimistic.

      ‘Okay …?’

      ‘Okay,’ she said through a tight smile.

      On the bright side, the distraction seemed to have made her forget all about her sea nerves.

      She moved into her cabin.

      ‘There are worse things in this life than sharing a room with me,’ he joked. ‘Women have cage-fought for less.’

      She threw him her most withering glare. He loved that one.

      ‘Seriously,’ he probed carefully. ‘Why are you so angry?’

      She pressed her lips together. ‘Because it was shaping up to be a stupid situation and I’m not accustomed to doing stupid things.’

      He snorted. ‘By contrast, I’m delighted to discover that you’re fallible.’ Way too pleased to be bothered at the thought of sharing a room. In fact, one tiny part of him was disappointed. The part that liked her best off-kilter.

      She frowned at him. ‘I didn’t want you to think … It looked like …’

      She fanned more furiously.

      Oh … She didn’t want him to think she’d planned it that way. Accidentally on purpose. ‘You know you don’t have to come up with convoluted excuses to sleep with me, Shirley. I’m easy. Or haven’t you read the papers?’

      She had roughly the same number of glares as smiles and he enjoyed them just as much.

      ‘Easy? Hardly.’

      But she kept her distance, he noticed. He flopped down on one of the tiny beds.

      Her startled face returned to him. ‘What are you doing?’

      ‘Waiting for Immigration. We might as well save them some time and wait together.’

      She grunted and set about transferring the contents of her suitcase into the stand-up locker in the austere room. He watched her crossing back and forth across the tiny space. Her movements were fluid, graceful. More dancing than walking. The items she was unpacking were mostly dark and plain. Not at all what he’d become used to her wearing.

      ‘What?’ she challenged on her third pass.

      ‘I was expecting something more … nautical.’ And how strange that he felt genuine disappointment at its absence. He’d grown used to her particular brand of fashion.

      She straightened and turned. Considered him. ‘Not really practical at sea. Most of what I’ve brought is supremely suburban.’

      He stared at her. ‘Does that mean no make-up?’

      ‘Pfff. Don’t be ridiculous.’

      He tucked his hands behind his head. ‘What if I challenged you?’

      She frowned. ‘To what?’

      ‘You challenged me to do the list on a budget. What if I challenge you to do it in civvies with no make-up?’

      ‘Why would you?’

      He couldn’t think of a clever answer to that so he went for honest. ‘Because I got such a short glimpse of Shirley at Tim’s party. And because that way we’re both out of our comfort zones.’

      And because I’m dying to know what colour your lips really are. He stared at them now, stained with dark lipstick, and imagined wiping it off with his thumb.

      She stared him down. Thinking. ‘All right.’

      He knew her too well to imagine she’d just capitulate. All they’d done since meeting was trade—insults, tasks, looks—this wasn’t going to be any different. ‘But …?’

      ‘I’ll ease up on the make-up while we’re on this trip if you’ll answer a question. Honestly.’

      The keen glint of her eye should have been warning enough. But he was too dazzled by it to recognise it straight away. ‘Okay.’

      ‘What was your fascination with my mother?’

      His gut tightened up immediately, the bad old days still not his favourite pre-dinner conversation. But he’d agreed to be honest. ‘She was a great teacher.’

      Those eyes so very like her mother’s narrowed. ‘Every Saturday for three years?’

      He stood. This conversation just didn’t feel right with him stretched out on the tiny bed. Shirley crossed her arms, taking the leggings she was still holding with her. They bunched across her torso.

      ‘She knew so much. She gave us one hundred per cent of her focus.’ Which was a bit rough when that left nothing for her daughter, he suddenly realised. But at the time he’d simply craved a motherly connection. Anyone’s mother would have done.

      ‘I